Bungie Wants ‘Destiny’ to Embrace All Skill Levels; Pre-Orders Available Now

Published 2 years ago
by
Brian Sipple
, Updated February 19th, 2013 at 6:55 am,

When Bungie pulled back the veil from Destiny this Sunday, the vastness and complexity of its futuristic, war-torn universe was palpable. From rebuilding Earth’s Last City under the shadow of the mysterious Traveler to branching back out across the galaxy and fighting deadly alien adversaries, it’s easy to imagine that Destiny– with its developer committed to a four-installment release plan through publisher Activision — will become a multi-platform staple of next-generation gaming.

Before it attempts to do so, however, Bungie wants to make sure that the game is palatable for all skill levels.

Speaking in an interview with Shack News, Bungie co-founder Jason Jones stressed that fully enjoying the Destiny experience boils down to one thing: basic shooter skills. Even in a game that considers itself part-RPG (players can choose between several distinct, upgradeable and customizable character classes) and part-MMO (Destiny revolves around a connected, always-online and always-evolving game world), anyone with a few hours of Call of Dutyunder their belt can thrive amongst the general populace:

“If you have the basic coordination to play a shooter, you can experience all Destiny has to offer. All core activities can be able to be enjoyed by a novice player, even as we we get into those complex six-player activities, like raids.”

In Jones’s opinion, creating such a rich universe — Bungie has been adamant about the fact that Destiny is their biggest undertaking ever — is all the more reason to consider every player’s basic needs. Of course, the world should be immersive, entertaining an consistently rewarding for players with highly developed abilities. But first and foremost it should be inviting, regardless of a gamer’s background or, apparently, emotional state of mind.

“We want everybody that wants to play to be able to play Destiny. We spent all this time building this great experience. Why should we do anything less?

“Destiny knows you’re tired, impatient, and distracted… [Players] don’t want to work hard, they don’t want to read, they don’t want to go on the internet to figure out our bull—-. They want to be entertained, they want to become heroes, they want to feel things they don’t feel in their everyday lives. So our core experience has to be delivered as simply and directly as possible.

“It’s easy to make a game accessible. What’s hard is keeping it interesting for your advanced players when you do that. We’re going to succeed, because we’re advanced players. We play our own game all the time. We’d go crazy if it was anything less than fun.”

The concept of accessibility can be hard sell to hardcore gamers; no one like to have their favorite features streamlined or watered down. Likely, that’s not the general direction Bungie intends to travel in; however balancing difficulty in a massive online universe like Destiny won’t be as simple as queuing up a menu screen in Halo’s single-player campaign and toggling from Easy (smooth sailing) to Legendary (suicidal). Everyone is playing in the same sandbox, and with Bungie confirming that even Destiny’s multiplayer won’t disconnect gamers from the core world, it will be interesting to see how different events and encounters will cater to each skill set.

Despite all of the myriad unknowns surrounding Destiny, however — multiplayer, specific gameplay scenarios, release date, release plan — a large contingent of gamers were no doubt sold on the game the minute it was announced (which could vary between Sunday, last October or Bungie’s clever Destiny Easter Egg in 2009’s Halo: ODST, depending on your interpretation of the word). Thankfully, Destiny pre-order options have appeared on the websites of Best Buy and GameStop for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game. Presently, they’re priced at $59.99, although we’re curious to see if that number doesn’t evolve for the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 as they inevitably join the roster.

Ranters, do you think Destiny can be enjoyable for all skill levels — both the hardcore RPG/MMO /FPS veteran and, in Jason Jones’s words, the “novice?”

Destinywill release on the Xbox 360, PS3, and unspecified next-generation platforms. It was originally believed to be targeting a late-2013 launch, but now appears slated for some period in 2014.

16 Comments

I disagree so f***ing hard. I want to be challenged, I want to read, I want more details and more frustration so that when I overcome an obstacle I feel f***ing legendary. I don’t want to be handed the keys to a BFG and pushed through the game like I’m 5 years old. Stop trying to revolutionize the gaming industry for casual gamers.

What are you even comparing new games too? Pacman? Older games were so simple that you didn’t need an explanation. Why do you think they need to make tutorials and what-not? – Because games these days are so big and immersive that, without them, you’d be a fish out of water.

Now, granted, the whole, “Use the right stick to look around. Press (b) to crouch. Press the trigger to shoot” thing is old and no longer needed, since it’s almost always the same, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a tutorial part of the game to introduce the features and slowly allow the player to slip into the game that they worked so hard to make immersive and fun.

Really? Big and immersive?? Games today are so linear and they over simplify everything so players don’t get confused. For example, one game all Xbox fanboys praise as the king of action games, Gears of War. Are you telling me that there is anywhere to go except the exact hallway path they set for you? Any illusion of an open area is all blocked off by random garbage, rubble, or whatever, and it’s really just a narrow hallway. Enemy encounters are so predictable it’s sad. When you see conveniently scatter waist-high blocks for cover, you know enemies are about to spawn. Then when there’s any bit of an “obstacle” it really isn’t. Like fire is blocking your path. Instead of letting you figure out that the fire extinguisher you passed before would put out the fire, your AI teammate would literally repeat to you OVER AND OVER AND OVER how you should use a fire extinguisher to put out the fire. And it’s not just the first time, it’s every time… I mean, seriously?? And that’s every console game, how many games can you think of where one button does everything? You hold X or whatever to turn a wheel, hold X to press a button, hold X to push an object, hold X to climb this ladder, hold X to hack this computer. I mean, really? And how many games now can you actually screw things up to where it makes the level unbeatable so you actually have to try again? They dummy proof everything now, no matter what you’re able to progress as long as you press the right button at the right time, and they tell you exactly what it is and when…

I’m comparing games now to games before where you actually can screw something up and make the game unbeatable. So you’ll have to go back to a previous save and actually do things over. Games like the original Rainbow Six games made by Redstorm, not Ubisoft, where you get training missions to familiarize yourself with the controls, then you need to actually PLAN your attack with multiple teams, then you execute the mission and when you screw up either the mission planning or the execution, hostages get killed and you actually lose the mission and have to start over.

Or Half Life and Half Life 2 where there were no tutorials, onscreen hints (Press X here to jump over this wall, Press A behind this guy to silently kill him, etc. etc.) like every game has now. Instead, a long train ride into the facility was your peaceful opportunity to try out all of the keys to see what they do.

Or games like Zelda, or the old Resident Evil games, or any other game where puzzles actually meant you had to figure them out in order to proceed. It wasn’t simply walking up to something glowing and holding X… Even Half Life 2 had obstacles that you had to apply basic physics to figure out how to proceed. Like stacking enough cinder blocks on one side of a wood plank so the other end raises up to where you can run up and jump up to a raised ground in order to exit. There were no onscreen blips or words, or some AI teammate repeating to you over and over and over what you should do. You’re simply presented with a situation, you looked around, put 2 and 2 together, and solved the puzzle to move on.

Then there were games like the original Operation Flashpoint, where you’re given mission objectives, but they do not tell you how to do them. You can literally complete those objectives ANY WHICH WAY you choose to. The entire island is at your disposal. There was nothing linear about that game. Now-a-days, if you don’t do something in the game exactly the way the game developers intended it, you will not be able to progress, or worse, you’ll randomly die pushing you back to the last checkpoint. Like one mission in OFP you were supposed to destroy as many tanks or armored cars as you can in this enemy repair depot, then leave. You COULD just sneak in, plant a few satchel charges, and destroy 2 of them and your mission is technically a success and you can get back to the extraction point and leave. OR, you can do what I did, sneak in, jump into their best tank, kill all of the crew in the base, then proceed to blow up all of the tanks and APC’s with their own tank. Of course doing it this way alerts them and backup arrives. Luckily, I’m in a tank… So I kill their backup. Then why walk back to extraction? I drive their tank back to extraction. Might as well travel in style… Any other game of today, you try to do that, and magically you cannot board any of the tanks because you were not meant to use them in that mission. There will be marked places where you’ll have to plant the explosives, then once you plant them, most likely some scripted event would set off the alarm and repetitive waves of enemies will come in from predictable places, but it’s ok, because there so happens to be waist-high boxes right where you are at that moment that you can use for cover. Then in about 2-3 waves of bad guys, the alarm will stop and you can leave… Or maybe your “explosives guy” will be like “Hey, I need some time to set these explosives” and while he’s sitting there randomly moving his hands around in front of the explosives, waves of bad guys will come in the way I described before. And strangely, your explosive guy doesn’t finish setting the explosives in any certain time, it always lasts exactly how long it takes you to kill a certain number of bad guys that come in… Weird…

But anyway, if you really think games are so deep and immersive now, good for you. The number of games out there that are actually a challenge to play and actually provide quality entertainment is very few in my opinion…

Damn, that game is linear? When I complain about a game being too linear, I’m not just talking about the story. Most games with a strong narrative are linear, what I’m really complaining about is that they don’t allow a lot of options in HOW you progress through the game. I’ve heard that with Dishonored you can play through the game in many different ways depending on how you feel like accomplishing the mission objectives… So if that’s true, then it’s not really the “bad” linear I dislike. The type of linear gameplay I hate is like Homefront. Where if you don’t do something exactly the way they want you to, it’ll never trigger the scripted event that would allow you to progress. Or worse, in one part of the game, the game wanted you to sneak around, I wanted to see how long I’ll last if I take on the enemy head-on, but when you try to do that, you just magically die right when you veer off the game’s intended path for you. It was so stupid… Nobody needs to shoot you, you just *boom* dead… WTF???

Shalkowski 2 years ago

I do not like the sound of this. I do want to figure out all the bullsh*t you throw at me because it makes you be involved in the game. Not just mind numbing shooting and killing.

On a different note, I wonder if they will have a speech wheel or if its going to be like Boarderlands 2 where you go over to the person and they just tell you what they need and you do it. Also, I wonder what the rating will be. I have my fingers crossed for M but it sounds like they are leaning towards T.

I want to issue a quick correction here. In regards to “watering down” and “streamlining” features, my sentence should have been “Likely, that’s not the general direction Bungie intends to travel in.” The “not” was missing before, which tends to change the tone a bit

I’m just going to say that I agree with ‘Ken J’ Its unfortunate but this whole ‘accessibility’ was never a goal/issue before(Lets say..7 yrs ago?) Its painfully obvious that this game is being aimed at the current trend of casually accessible games where everyone regardless of experience level/age could play and be good at.

Whats could be wrong with that? It makes the overall experience to quick, easy, effortless and in the end it leaves me the feeling that it was just not worth it IMHO…I’ll just say that I disagree with damn near everything Bungie said..